Naruto's Weakening Seal and the Darkness Shinobi :

Part I of the Darkness Chronicles

Written by Entei Artist, Devdog47, and Senacku

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Notes: In order to contact Devdog47 or Senacku, please send your message through my profile page, Entei Artist. I will be sure to forward it to them.

This story is written in three perspectives. Kyoka is written by Devdog47, Natari is written by Senacku, and Mikomi is written by Entei Artist. Chapters will have different writing styles because of the variation of authors.

Disclaimer: We do not own Naruto, nor its characters, places, etc., etc.

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Chapter 8

Told by Natari Roo

I was having a really screwed up dream. I was a wolf who was fighting a fox in some kind of dark space. I didn't find out who won, because I woke up to see Kyoka screaming! The first thing that came to mind was, "What the crap is happening?" Then I realized that she was probably having a really bad nightmare. Then I saw that everyone else was waking up.

"What's it? What's goin' on?" Naruto asked groggily.

"Kyoka! Kyoka, wake up!" Mikomi said loudly while shaking Kyoka's shoulder. Kyoka jolted awake.

"What…what happened?" Kyoka asked.

"You were screaming in your sleep," Eureka said. Kyoka looked around at us.

"I was?" she asked. Then, under her breath, "That's what he said. I must've had the same nightmare, I can't remember." She meant me not to hear, but I did and no one else.

"Yeah!" Naruto said, now fully awake. "I bet people could hear it for miles!"

"Oh, no…" Kyoka moaned.

"This is bad," Mikomi frowned. Then I realized that what they were talking about – Hoshigaki and Itachi had probably heard us and were heading this way!

"What's bad?" Naruto asked with a confused expression.

"We've gotta get moving. Hoshigaki and Itachi could be coming for us right now!" Eureka said quickly.

"Oooooooooh! I get it!" Naruto said. We hurriedly packed our sleeping bags up.

"Okay everyone, we've gotta hurry!" Mikomi said. "Let's go!"

And with that we were off, jumping on trees instead of the ground (so that our footsteps wouldn't show up).

We'd been jumping through trees for the rest of the night, about 4 hours. I was exhausted. I HATE traveling nonstop for extended periods of time! I was seriously considering stopping, laying down, and falling asleep. But I wasn't about to let Naruto beat me in terms of stamina, no WAY!

"Okay, everybody. Let's stop for a break," Kyoka said. Everyone stopped. I groaned and sat down.

"Aren't wearing out, are ya, Natari?" Naruto smirked. I jumped up.

"No way!" I replied. No way was I gonna let Naruto beat me!

"I think just about everyone is worn down. We've been most jumping through trees most of the night, and on only a bit of sleep, too," Eureka said. Kyoka sighed.

"Everyone should sleep for a bit. Just for a couple of hours. We need to get going again soon," Kyoka said. I smiled. "Yes!" I thought.

"Oh, come on! I'm not even tired!" Naruto said. We got our sleeping bags out and crawled into them. And guess who fell asleep first?

" 'I'm not even tired' my foot! Naruto's the first one to fall asleep!" I exclaimed.

"Shut up and follow his lead. Everyone needs some sleep," Mikomi said. Like I needed to be told twice. I laid down by Kyoka and quickly fell asleep…

I was having the same wolf/fox dream and was about to see who won the fight, when, again, I was awakened by Kyoka in the morning. She wasn't screaming, but she was muttering in her sleep. Loud enough for me to hear, but not loud enough to be coherent. I only heard her because my sleeping bag was closest to her. I realized that she was also sweating.

"Kyoka… Kyoka, wake up…," I said groggily. I figured she was having another nightmare. She didn't wake up, so I shook her shoulder.

"Just go back to sleep. You'll need all your energy to run from us, right?" a new voice said. I started and looked up. There were Itachi and Hoshigaki, staring at me!

"Crap!" I said, in a panic. I started shaking Kyoka harder. "Kyoka, wake-"

But I couldn't finish my sentence. I had made the mistake of looking in Itachi's eyes. I suddenly couldn't move! Hoshigaki came forward and pulled me into a chokehold. I found I could move again, but I knew that if I did move, Hoshigaki would make it a lot harder for me to breathe. "Crap! Crap crap crap! What do I do! What the crap am I supposed to do now! They could KILL me!" I thought in a panic. I guess Itachi guessed what I was thinking.

"Don't worry. We won't kill you… unless you do anything stupid," he said quietly. I didn't need a dictionary of missing nin lingo to understand that their meaning of "stupid" was anything that involved me escaping them.

Itachi moved toward Naruto as Hoshigaki moved to the edge of the clearing, dragging me with him. I stared in dismay. I didn't want them to take Naruto! They might kill him or something! It isn't that I like Naruto, not like the way Kyoka teases me about, but… I dunno. I felt as if we could be pretty good friends, even if we argued a lot. Well, anyway…

Itachi towered over Naruto, when… Kyoka screamed and jolted awake! Everyone else (surprise!) woke up. Kyoka was on her feet in about the time it takes to blink.

"Hey!" Mikomi yelled as she saw the situation. She was on her feet in seconds, followed closely by Eureka.

Itachi made a desperate lunge toward the awakened Naruto, but had to pull back to avoid a kunai thrown by Kyoka. Naruto scrambled away from Itachi and toward the others.

"Don't interfere. Just give us the boy," Itachi said in a dangerous, dark tone. "Or maybe your friend will have an unfortunate incident with a kunai…" At this sentence, Hoshigaki pulled a kunai out and put it up to my throat. This wasn't turning out to be a great day. Kyoka glared at him.

"You can kill her…," she said, just as dangerously. My KIDDING me! You're just eyes widened. "You've gotta be kidding! You're gonna LET him KILL ME!"I screamed at her. But Kyoka kept talking…

"…but if you kill her, we'll kill Naruto." I hoped that would convince them from killing me. I hoped very, VERY much. Naruto's eyes widened.

"What the CRAP are you talking about!" he shouted. But then Eureka pulled him into a chokehold. Naruto struggled to escape Eureka's grasp, so Eureka increased pressure on his neck to momentarily suffocate Naruto. Then, Eureka released the pressure and allowed Naruto to breathe. Eureka took out a kunai and put it to Naruto's throat to emphasize Kyoka's threat. Naruto stopped struggling and held still. Itachi seemed to accept that he wouldn't get Naruto that easily.

"Fine. Then we'll fight for Naruto," Itachi said.

"Fine by me. I will KILL you," Kyoka snapped.

So Itachi activated his sharingan and he and Kyoka fought. It took about 2 minutes for Itachi to find out just how strong Kyoka was when she wasn't sick. After about 10 minutes, both combatants looked pretty bad. With a broken arm and coughing up a lotta blood, Itachi stumbled backward into a tree. He used it to support himself. With a deep kunai gash in her arm and her wrist broken, Kyoka jumped backward, panting. Both were weakening quickly. If they didn't stop the battle at this, they would both black out from lack of blood or something… Itachi groaned and deactivated his sharingan.

"Give back Natari," Kyoka panted.

" Heh, heh, heh… no. She will be our hostage. If you want to keep her alive, find us within a week. We will battle again then."

"How am I supposed to find you?"

"We will have a fire burning continuously when we are ready to be found. Look for the smoke."

"Fine… but if you kill her before our time is up…"

"We won't."

Then, Kyoka gave Itachi a glare and leaned, exhausted, against a tree.

"We're leaving. Don't follow us or we'll kill the kid," Hoshigaki said. And, before I knew what was happening, Itachi was in my face. I couldn't help but look in his eyes, and again, I couldn't move.

"You will follow us. You will not try to escape. Now come," Itachi said. Hoshigaki let go of me. Somehow, my body just started moving on its own, and I followed Itachi and Hoshigaki.

We jumped through trees for about an hour. I struggled to stop moving the entire time, but it was in vain. Soon, Itachi couldn't go any further without dealing with his wounds, so we stopped at a nearby clearing. I stood awkwardly to the side of the clearing, trying desperately to run away, but whatever Itachi had done to me was too strong. I couldn't move. I was struggling so hard, I didn't pay attention to Hoshigaki. But I still felt his fist connecting with the side of my head, and, I'm not sure, but I think I was unconscious before I hit the ground.

I woke up to see the moon shining down on me. I moaned softly. Ouch… I was tied to a tree in a sitting position, and my head hurt like CRAP. It took me a second, but I finally remembered what had happened earlier. I saw Hoshigaki performing a healing jutsu on Itachi. When he finished it, he turned around to look at me. I guess he'd heard my moan.

"Finally awake, huh? I beat your head hurts pretty badly, eh?" Hoshigaki grinned evilly. I looked down and frowned sadly. "I'm screwed," I thought. "Completely, totally screwed." So I leaned back against the tree. If I was gonna be screwed, I wasn't gonna be tired AND screwed at the same time. I wanted some sleep. Besides, there wasn't anything else to do but be worried, be scared, and wait for my friends. And annoy the crap out of Hoshigaki and Itachi. I mean, it wasn't like they could kill me. I smiled. I wondered if Itachi and Hoshigaki would like to hear the lyrics of Hit The Floor, one of my favorite songs… This may not be so bad after all…

I couldn't sleep. I had already slept most of the day. So I just annoyed the crap out of Itachi and Hoshigaki. While they tried to sleep. Well, at least I annoyed them until Hoshigaki started yelling that if I didn't shut up, he would punch me in the face until I did. He also informed me that, just because they couldn't kill me, that didn't mean they couldn't hurt me. So, yeah, that shut me up.

I'd just been pretty much watching them sleep for about an hour when I heard a rustling noise behind me. I started and strained against my ropes to see what it was. It was someone in the shadows, so I couldn't see their face… they had a knife and were cutting the ropes! They finished and the ropes dropped around me. I grinned and got up. The person got out of the shadows and walked into the clearing. It was…KYOKA!

"Kyoka!" I hissed. "I thought you were hurt really bad-" But she muffled my words with my hand.

"Shut up," she said quietly. "I'll explain on the way back."

We jumped through the trees, headed back to our camp, as Kyoka explained. "I decided that I was the only one fast enough to rescue you AND get away if Itachi and Hoshigaki woke up, so Mikomi and Eureka did a bunch of healing jutsus."

"Cool! That's awesome!" I smiled. My stomach growled, and I frowned. "Uhm… can I have some ramen when we get back?"

"Sure. Hey, don't you wanna know how your boyfriend is?" Kyoka asked with a mischievous grin.

"Don't start that crap again!" I yelled at her.

"Well, he was pretty mad at first. He thought we were really gonna kill him. But then we explained that we were just bluffing." Kyoka smiled.

"He isn't my boyfriend, you freakin' idiot!" I sneered at her.

"I know. I'm just playing with you," she grinned. Then her expression turned serious.

"But we really need to be quiet now- those two gay lovers could wake up at any minute and find that you're gone." I laughed.

"Just because they wear nail polish doesn't mean they are gay," I said.

"Why are you defending them, Natari? Have you found another boyfriend?" Kyoka said cheerfully.

"Yes. I've fallen madly in love with a guy with blue skin and a guy with red eyes," I said sarcastically.

"Ooo-ooo, Mikomi's gonna be so jealous!"

"What do you mean, jealous?"

"Nothing…You wouldn't understand."

"Are you saying that Mikomi likes Itachi!" I yelled.

"Maybe…maybe not," Kyoka said nonchalantly.

"Oh my gosh," I said happily. "I am SO gonna rub this in Mikomi's face when we get back!"

"I bet you are."

Soon after this conversation we arrived at our camp. Mikomi, Naruto, and Eureka looked up and Eureka picked up a flashlight that had fallen on its side and pointed it at us.

"Don't tell me you guys were playing spin the bottle with a flashlight," I smirked.

"Besides, Mikomi, I thought your man was Itachi!"

Mikomi looked mortified.

"Kyokaaaaa! Did you tell her?" she whined.

"It's not like it's a big secret. Okay, okay, I'm sorry…" Kyoka said.

"Whatever…" Mikomi frowned. Then she turned to me and sneered. "If you tease me, I'll hurt you."

"Mikomi, that hurts. Why would I tease one of my best friends about loving an evil guy named Itachi who has red eyes and just kidnapped me? And also may be gay?" I asked.

Mikomi responded by whacking me over the head.

"Shut up! Okay, everyone, it's almost morning, so we'll just run the entire day!"

"I'm eatin' ramen first!" I yelled at her. She frowned.

"Fine," she snapped. "Just hurry it up!"

"Cool! I'm glad you guys got back okay!" Naruto grinned.

"Yeah, right, like I'm gonna get hurt by two gay idiots!" I smiled back.

"They are so in love," Kyoka said to Mikomi.

"Yeah," Mikomi agreed.

"I'M GONNA HURT YOU IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP!" Naruto and I screamed at them at the same time. I starting pouting and got my ramen out and started cooking it. I got out a CD player and put it on – I hadn't listened to it the whole trip and I really wanted some good loud rap music right now… like Linkin Park! Yeah. And it would keep me from yelling at Mikomi and Kyoka or hearing what they had to say. I filled the time waiting until my ramen was done by mouthing the lyrics to my songs, which was really fun. When my ramen was done, I ate it. Then, we packed up our stuff and started running to the Darkness Village. If we hurried, we'd get there within a day.

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End Notes: Ah, more Natari/Naruto and Mikomi/Itachi fluff. Yay!

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